Beer of the Moment Article - Riggers' American Brown

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	Paul Rigby

American Brown


History
Unlike most of the “Classic” styles covered in my previous writings this is a style that is a very recent (the 1980’s in fact) invention by American craft brewers. As we all know craft brewers have a love affair with hops, the more the better, subtlety is not usually in the craft brewers vocabulary, this also applies equally to alcohol levels and our American brethren are no different! Given this can you guess the distinguishing feature of an American Brown Ale? - Yes - HOPS and a punchy alcohol level!
Brown ale has been brewed for centuries in Britain, in fact virtually all ales brewed prior to the Industrial Revolution where dark brown, sour and often smoky and/or roasty (due to the use of coal and coke etc as a heat source for the malting process and boiling etc) needless to say the style varies enormously from paler low alcohol versions up to very dark brown, almost porter like, high alcohol versions.
During the 1800’s the drinking public were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the dark sour brews of the day, sales fell, so the brewers countered with a lighter, sweeter, “milder” style which gained in popularity and became known as “Mild”. This new style soon became the most popular out selling all others right up to the 1950’s. Alas we all know the story from then to now - mega breweries, marketing guru’s, billions of dollars spent on advertising and the ubiquitous “Mild” was virtually gone. Enter some dedicated hop-head craft brewers in the US who resurrected the style as they thought it was supposed to be (most of them had probably never actually tasted a British Mild or Brown Ale) and VOILA! We now have a rich, complex, dark brown, hoppy and high alcohol style referred to as “American Brown Ale”.

Enhanced Kit Version (23 Litres)
American Brown Ale is a style that lends itself to any form of brewing but particularly kit brewing, whilst not a well-known style in itself it is a delightful beer, which I heartily recommend to all brewers to try.
I suggest starting out by purchasing a good quality Brown Ale kit. There are numerous choices of brands and the quality of the kits in this style are generally excellent and the final decision is yours. Ordinarily there really isn't much that can be done to enhance a kit beer but when making these darker, fuller flavoured styles there is more scope for innovation and flexibility. I suggest using malt extracts rather than dextrose or sugar and in this case I recommend using 1.5Kg of liquid amber malt extract or 1000gms of powdered amber blend malt extract.
Generally American styles are very well hopped and to turn a standard brown ale kit into a classic American Brown Ale all that is needed is HOPS! Lots of hops! To achieve the hop levels required I suggest adding 15 or 20gms of American Amarillo hop pellets to the fermenter when the gravity is at approximately 1.012. If you are in the habit racking your beer into a secondary fermenter then this should be done when the gravity is at approximately 1.012 and the hop pellets and finings should be added at this time.

Malt Extract & Mini Mash Version (23 Litres)
Base Malt – 1.5kg Light Liquid Malt Extract
1.5kg Amber Liquid Malt Extract
Mini mash grains - 480gms Amber Malt
300gms Chocolate Malt
200gms Light Crystal Malt
20gms Roast Malt
Put 2 and a half litres of cold water in a saucepan and add crushed grains and heat up VERY SLOWLY (over a 25 to 30 minute period) until just short of boiling. Strain the liquid into your pot for boiling, and discard the grain residue.
Hops – For bittering aim at around 40 IBU's using any general purpose hop you like, I generally use Northern Brewer but it really doesn’t matter. Quantity will vary depending on the %AA (alpha acid) of the hops being used. Grain & Grape staff will be happy to do the calculations for you.
As stated above American Brown Ales are very well hopped and in this sense an extract brew should be treated in the same manner as a kit brew. I recommend using American hops in an American style beers so Willamette, Cascade etc would be good choices. Amarillo has recently become available in this country and I have found them to be excellent in American style ales. I suggest adding 15 to 20gms of American Amarillo hop pellets to the fermenter when the gravity is at approximately 1.012. If you are in the habit racking your beer into a secondary fermenter then this should be done when the gravity is at approximately 1.012 and the hop pellets and fermenter finings should be added at this time.
Total boil time should be 90 minutes with the hops boiled for only 60 minutes.
Yeast - I recommend Wyeast 1056 American Ale. If you prefer the convenience of dry yeast then try Fermentis Safale US-56.

Full Grain Version (23 Litres)
Grains - 3000gms Ale Malt
1000gms Light Munich Malt
500gms Flaked Maize
350gms Light Crystal Malt
250gms Amber Malt
250gms Brown Malt
250gms Light Chocolate Malt
Mashing regimes are many and varied. Most modern malts are very well modified and only need a simple single step infusion mash to obtain very good results, with this in mind a simple mash regime is quite adequate for this style – a single step at 66ºC and mash out at 77ºC. Generally I would lean toward a slightly more complex mashing regime because I am able to gain more control over the balance of the final brew with respect to mouthfeel etc but really for a brown ale a simple regime is quite adequate and will give very good results for minimal effort.
Hops – For bittering aim at around 40 IBU's using any general purpose hop you like, I recommend using American hops in an American style beer so Willamette, Cascade etc would be good choices. Amarillo has recently become available in this country and I have found them to be excellent in American style ales and also London ales, they have a pleasant citrusy aroma, good shelf life, and mid range alpha acid. I generally advise the use of lower alpha hops for all brewing purposes but particularly bittering (especially for lower to moderate bitterness beers up to about 35 IBU’s) because if your scales are a little inaccurate two or three grams over in a total of twenty or thirty grams of a lower alpha hop will not be noticeable but three grams over in ten or twelve grams using a 12 or 14% AA hop will mean an almost undrinkably bitter beer!
Hop flavour is somewhat elusive (as are most hop characteristics) to achieve. The usual practice is that an amount of hops and any kettle finings (if you use them) are added to the boil for the last 10 minutes. With this in mind I recommend that you try adding 20gms of Amarillo for the last 10 minutes of the boil. I strongly recommend dry hopping with 10 to 15gms again of Amarillo in the secondary fermenter after racking.
Total boil time should be 90 minutes with the hops boiled for only 60 minutes.
Yeast - I recommend Wyeast 1056 American Ale. If you prefer the convenience of dry yeast then try Fermentis Safale US-56.

Paul C. Rigby - Grain & Grape